When I was in middle and high school, I loved baking bread. I made it almost every week. I tried to share this love with Hazel when she was growing up. When we did the parent child class at a Waldorf School, we were making bread there or at least kneading and shaping bread every class. Today we get to share a beautiful new book about a mom who shares her love of baking bread with her kids each week. The book is Bread Is Love by Pooja Makhijani and illustrated by Lavanya Naidu. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8.
About the Book:
Join a mother and her adorable children for their weekly baking ritual in Pooja Makhijani’s touching story, with warm, tender art by Lavanya Naidu. Bread Is Love celebrates the act of baking and eating bread, and sharing it with family.Bread is many things.
Bread is simple. The dough can be made with just flour, salt, starter, and water.
Bread is science. With the right ingredients, in the right amounts, the dough grows and changes.
Bread can be unpredictable. Sometimes it rises, like a soft pillow. Sometimes it’s flat and crunchy.
But bread is always delicious, especially when it is made with love.
From Me:
As a mom who baked bread with my young daughter, I love this book! It shares the fun of teaching kids to bake as well as things like knead and experiment. Kids enjoy playing with the texture of the dough at different stages. Baking teaches kid measuring as well as the fact that they can make food to feed themselves.
This book shares the weekend tradition in a fun way. The kids get messy and they are okay with that. It shares how baking bread is science and takes patience. They have it rest overnight and bake it the next day. They also do not get upset when the bread doesn't look like they planned. Sometimes it comes out flat or burnt but it always tastes delicious!
I also love how they share the bread with one another. It looks a bit like a party every weekend! They spread it with butter, marmalade and chutney. I love that Pooja brings a bit of her culture into the story here. The family members have fun sharing the bread and even feeding one another. These are the times memories are made of for the kids. At the end of the book is a simple recipe for bread. There is also the Author's Note where Pooja shares her experiences. I love this book for sharing family times as well as how to bake bread. To go with this book, the best activity is to bake bread. I am sharing a roundup of bread Hazel and I baked when she was younger as well as the post I shared some of the Waldorf songs we sang in the parent child class while kneading the bread. Happy baking!!
Bread Roundup
To go with this book, I thought it would be perfect to share some of the bread we baked when Hazel was young. There were times we just baked bread to bake bread, times we did it to celebrate a holiday and times we baked bread while exploring a different country and culture.
1) Baking Whole Wheat Bread
2) Huckabuck Bread (recipe from the Waldorf School)
9) Banana Bread (My College Favorite)
11) Native American Strawberry Corn Bread
12) Annie's Favorite Corn Bread
13) Portuguese Sweet Bread (for Easter)
15) Dragon Bread for Michaelmas (another one here too)
16) Crown of Thorns Bread for Easter
